The Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung is well known for developing his concept of the archetype. This refers to a primordial pattern existing in the collective unconscious, or humanity’s shared, inherited mental contents, which we are unaware of. Jung previously conceptualised archetypes (e.g. the Mother, the Trickster, the Shadow, the Child) as purely mental phenomena…
View Post
There are all kinds of ‘theories’ that exist, from the philosophical to the conspiratorial – the term ‘theory’ is also used colloquially to refer to something that may be more accurately called a hypothesis, an idea not yet confirmed. Scientific theories, however, are not mere speculations about what the world is like, but frameworks that…
View Post
The simulation hypothesis (also known as the simulation argument or simulation theory) proposes that reality as we know it is a simulation – and most likely a computer simulation. If this argument is true, it means that everything – ourselves, everyone on the planet, and the universe at large – is not what we think…
View Post
What are the essential features of a scientific argument? In answering this question, we first have to define the terms ‘scientific’ and ‘argument’. This will help to outline how a scientific argument differs from other kinds of arguments. While philosophers disagree about what ‘scientific’ means exactly (Karl Popper associates it with the concepts of falsifiability…
View Post